Amy Greenberg, Professor of American History and Women's Studies
315 Weaver
814-863-0162
asg5@psu.edu
Fields
U.S. nineteenth-century
"I am a historian of antebellum America (1800-1860) with a particular interest in the politics, culture, and social history of the decade before the Civil War. My research has been fairly focused in time period, (why stray from the fascinating antebellum era?) but topically broad. I have written books on urban society and culture (Cause for Alarm: The Volunteer Fire Department in Nineteenth-Century America), and on the role that the ideology of manifest destiny played in both foreign affairs and American society and culture at home (Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire). I tend to focus on the transformation of gender roles in most of my work, from volunteer firefighting in 1820s Baltimore to reactions to William Walker's Nicaraguan filibustering adventures in the mid-1850s. I am currently at work on three projects: a cultural history of the U.S.-Mexico War, a study of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Commissions of 1848- 1855, and a primary-source reader of key 18th and 19th century Southern expansionist texts. I love to lead class discussions on primary sources, and try to integrate visual images into all my lectures. In 1999 Penn State awarded me the George Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching."
Current or Recent Undergraduate Courses
The Early American Republic
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Latin America and the United States
The U.S.-Mexico War and its Aftermath
Sex and Violence in Nineteenth-Century America
American Urban History
Current or Recent Graduate Courses
Proseminar in Nineteenth-Century American History
Curriculum Vitae | Return to directory of department faculty